PROGRAM 09:00-09:30 REGISTRATION 09:30-09:45 WELCOMING REMARKS Ayla Gürel Moran PRIO Cyprus Centre Hubert Faustaman Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 09:45-10:30 KEYNOTE: Benedetta Berti Policy Planning Unit, Office of the Secretary General, NATO Rethinking Security in the East-Med 10:30-12:00 PANEL 1 - Global Power Shifts and the Eastern Mediterranean Political Order CHAIR AND DISCUSSANT: Zenonas Tziarras University of Cyprus 12:00-12:30 COFFEE BREAK PRESENTATIONS: Michael Harari Max Stern Yezreel Valley College and Consultant The Regional Architecture of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean - Process in the Making Jakub M. Godzimirski Norwegian Institute of International Relations (NUPI) The Return of Russia as a Strategic Factor and Actor in the Eastern Mediterranean. Long lines and Recent Developments. Silvia Colombo Mediterranean and Middle East Programme, Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) The New Regional Order in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: An Inside-out Perspective Serhat Güvenç Kadir Has University and KUDENFOR The Naval State of Play in the Eastern Mediterranean: Seapower, Energy and Immigration Nexus 12:30-14:00 PANEL 2 State and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean CHAIR AND DISCUSSANT: Costas M. Constantinou University of Cyprus 14:00-15:00 LUNCH PRESENTATIONS: Omer Fisher Human Rights Department, OSCE/ODIHR The OSCE comprehensive concept of security and the changing security landscape in the East Mediterranean region Isa Blumi Stockholm University, Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies Arabian Leakage: How Chaos in Arabia Soils the Region Nora Lafi Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin Individual Identities, Factional Affiliations, Reconfigured States and International Connections in the post- 2011 Middle East and North-Africa 15:00-16:30 PANEL 3 Prospects for Inter-State Cooperation and Regionalism
CHAIR AND DISCUSSANT: Emine Eminel Sülün Near East University PRESENTATIONS: Münevver Cebeci European Union Institute, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey and College of Europe-Natolin, Poland The EU's Approach to Regional Security in the Eastern Mediterranean: Problems and Prospects Kostas Ifantis Kadir Has University, Istanbul & Panteion University, Athens Zero-sum Cultures, Unstable Expectations and "Prospects" for Cooperation 16:30-16:45 CONCLUSIONS: Emine Eminel Sülün Zenonas Tziarras Near East University University of Cyprus
BIOGRAPHIES Ayla Gürel Moran is a Senior Research Consultant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo - PRIO Cyprus Centre (PCC) and has been a member since its establishment in 2005. She has worked on several research projects about the plight of displaced persons on both sides of the island and the associated question of property rights within the context of the Cyprus problem. She has numerous publications related to these topics. Gürel has also been involved in facilitating inter-communal dialogue on property issues, including at the level of the UN-sponsored negotiations for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem. Recently she has led a PRIO Cyprus Centre team on a project entitled Internal Displacement in Cyprus: Mapping the Consequences of Civil and Military Strife. Her more recent research engagement concerns the issue of hydrocarbons exploration and exploitation offshore Cyprus. Benedetta Berti is currently serving as Acting Head of the Policy Planning Unit (PPU), in the Office of the Secretary General at NATO. An Eisenhower Global Fellow and a TED Senior Fellow, in the past decade Benedetta has held research and teaching positions at Harvard University, West Point, The Institute for National Security Studies and the Foreign Policy Research Institute, among others. Her areas of expertise include human security, internal conflict, integration of armed groups, post-conflict stabilization and peace-building. Costas M. Constantinou is Professor of International Relations at the University of Cyprus with research interests in diplomacy, conflict and international political theory. Before coming to Cyprus, he has taught for many years at the Universities of Lancaster, Hull and Keele, and then for two years at the University of Nicosia. He has published extensively in the areas of diplomacy, conflict, international political theory and international norms and exceptions.
Emine Eminel Sülün is a full-time faculty member in International Relations Department at Near East University (Cyprus). She completed her PhD in International Relations at the Middle East Technical University (Turkey) in January 2016. She holds a BA in Sociology from Middle East Technical University, and a MA in International Politics from University of Bath (United Kingdom). In 2014 and 2015, Emine received the International Studies Association (ISA) Travel Grant for the ISA Annual Conferences in Toronto (Canada) and New Orleans, LA, USA. Dr. Eminel Sülün's primary area of research has focused on security and geopolitics of energy in eastern Mediterranean." Hubert Faustmann is Professor for History and Political Science at the University of Nicosia. He is also the director of the office of the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Cyprus. From 2006 to 2016 he was the editor-in-chief of the refereed journal The Cyprus Review. He has published extensively on the British Colonial Period in Cyprus as well as Cypriot politics, history and society since 1960. He co-writes the annual reports about Cyprus for the Political Data Yearbook of the European Journal of Political Research. He is also editor and one of the authors of the monthly FES Cyprus Newsletter. Isa Blumi (PhD from NYU and MA/BA the New School for Social Research) is a recent addition to the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University, and has worked to build the graduate program in Middle Eastern Studies. Now in its second year, with over 30 MA students enrolled, Dr. Blumi will now expand the program to include Turkish Studies as one of two tracks. While supervising MA students and serving as an external supervisor to PhD students currently writing their dissertations in universities throughout North America, Australia, and Europe, Dr. Blumi continues to research and write on a range of themes that link both periods and geographies. Having just finished his latest book Destroying Yemen (University of California Press), which accounts for the recent violence in South Arabia, he returns to exploring transitional societies. A visiting scholar in LMU- Munich in January, he will organize a two-day workshop on the long-term impact of the collapse of the Romanov, Habsburg, and Ottoman empires in relation to the movements of these polities subjects well beyond World War II. Pairing the organization of this international event, his research into migrations to the Americas extends his earlier work on Ottoman subjects global dispersal over the 1878-1930 period in his book Ottoman Refugees (Bloomsbury, 2013). In the meantime, Dr. Blumi intends to continue offering analysis of the late Ottoman Empire as a global phenomenon, advocating for appreciating the comparative value of pairing events in diverse corners of the empire (his work focuses on the Balkans, Yemen, and Persian Gulf) with those in other contemporary multicultural societies. Aside from producing 6 monographs and 5 edited volumes on both the Balkans and larger Middle East, covering the entire 19th to present period, he has published more than 2 dozen peer reviewed articles.
Jakub M. Godzimirski (b.1957) has PhD in social anthropology from the Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters PAN (1987) and MA in Social/Cultural Anthropology from University of Warsaw (1981). In 1995 he joined NUPI where his main areas of research have been Russian foreign and security policy, energy policy and developments in the post-soviet space and in Central and Eastern Europe. Godzimirski has conducted several studies on Russian foreign and security policies focusing on Russia s role in the post- Soviet conflicts, Russia s relations with other actors (OSCE, NATO, Norway, Poland) and on Russia s and EU s energy policy. Godzimirski has also published several studies on political and social transition in Central and Eastern Europe, energy security and migration and diaspora related issues. Kostas Ifantis is an Associate Professor of International Relations, Department of International Relations, Kadir Has University and at Panteion University of Athens. He worked as a Lecturer in International and European Politics at the Universities of Bradford and Portsmouth, UK (1991-1995). He was a USIA Visiting Fellow at the Center for Political studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1998) a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2002), an IAA Senior Research Fellow at the LSE (2009), and a Visiting Professor at the University of Seoul (2016). Between 2005 and 2008 he served as Director for Research at the Policy Planning Center of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His papers have appeared in edited books and in periodicals such as Democratization, Turkish Studies, Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Perceptions, International Journal etc. His books include Greece in a Changing Europe, (co-ed., Manchester University Press, 1996); NATO in the New European Order, (Macmillan, 1996); Theory and Reform in the European Union, (Manchester University Press, 2002); and NATO and the New Security Paradigm, (Frank Cass 2002); Turkish-Greek Relations: The Security Dilemma in the Aegean, (co-ed., Routledge, 2004); International Security Today (co-ed., SAM, 2006); Multilateralism and Security Institutions in an Era of Globalization, (co-ed., Routledge, 2009); International Political Theory: The charm of realist discourse (in Greek, 2012); Is Europe Afraid of Europe? (ed., Wilfrid Martens Center, 2014); The Syrian Imbroglio: Regional and International Strategies (co-ed., Florence, European University Institute 2017). Michael Harari worked for a private bank in Israel before joining the Diplomatic Service (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel) in 1986. He served at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo as spokesman, political counselor at the Embassy in London, and an Ambassador in Cyprus for five years (2010-2015). At the MFA in Jerusalem Michael worked intensively on Middle Eastern and Strategic topics - covering Palestinian and Jordanian affairs at the Center for Political Research, in charge of the whole Middle East and the Peace Process affairs at the Bureau of policy planning, writing policy recommendations for the Government, and head of the International Division at the Center for Political Research for two years. Educated at Tel Aviv and Haifa Universities holding BA and MA in Political science and defense studies. Michael studied as well at the National Defense College of IDF. Michael retired from the MFA in July 2017 after 31 years at the Diplomatic service. He teaches in the University, and does consulting on Strategic topics, policy planning and energy.
Münevver Cebeci is an Associate Professor at the European Union Institute (a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence), Marmara University in Istanbul and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe-Natolin in Warsaw. She has taught several courses, including European Foreign Policy, Security Studies and International Relations Theories since 2001. Her course International Politics of the EU was awarded as a Jean Monnet Permanent Course by the European Commission in 2002-2007. She gave lectures (as a guest) at various universities; including Bilgi University-Istanbul, Bilkent University- Ankara, Université libre de Bruxelles, and Canterbury Christ Church University. She is a former visiting fellow of WEU (now, the EU) Institute for Security Studies (April-June 1998) and a former Senior Researcher of the College of Europe-Natolin (April 2016-April 2017). She holds a PhD in EU Politics and International Relations from the European Union Institute, Marmara University, an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics (as a Jean Monnet scholar) and an MA in International Relations from the Social Sciences Institute, Marmara University. Her research interests include European Foreign Policy (especially the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and European Neighbourhood Policy) and Security Studies. She has published two books and numerous scholarly articles in journals and edited books. Her latest book Issues in EU and US Foreign Policy (an edited volume) was published by Lexington Books in 2011. Her next book De-Constructing Ideal Power Europe : The EU and the Arab Change is to be published by Lexington Books in 2018. Nora Lafi is a Senior Research Fellow with the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. She also teaches at Freie Universität Berlin (History Dpt, Islamwissenschaft Dpt and Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies). Her research focuses on the cities of the Middle East and North-Africa and particularly on issues of governance and civil society. Among her recent publications: Understanding the City through its Margins (Co-ed., Routledge, 2017); Urban Violence in the Middle East (Co-ed., Berghahn, 2015); Building and Deconstructing Authenticity in Aleppo: Heritage between Conservation, Transformation, Destruction and Reinvention (in Bernhardt et al., Berlin, 2017); The Arab Spring in Global Perspective: Social Movements, Changing Contexts and Political Transitions inthe Arab World (in Berger and Nehring eds, The History of Social Movements, NY, Palgrave, 2017)" Omer Fisher is Head of the Human Rights Department of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR) ODIHR. He joined ODIHR in 2010 as Human Rights Advisor, working primarily on freedom of peaceful assembly. Previously, he worked at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London as Researcher on the Balkans and as Senior Research Policy Advisor, developing and advising on human rights monitoring and fact finding methodologies. Omer Fisher holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK and a degree in Economics from Bocconi University, Milan, Italy. He authored or co-authored a number of human rights reports and publications for the organizations he worked at. Silvia Colombo is Head of the Mediterranean and Middle East Programme at the International Affairs Institute (IAI) in Rome. An expert on Middle Eastern politics, she works on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, transatlantic relations in the Mediterranean and domestic and regional politics in the Arab World. Among her research interests there are also the relations between the European Union and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and energy dynamics in the Euro- Mediterranean region. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (Florence Branch) and a Master's Degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. She speaks Arabic fluently and has travelled extensively in the Middle Eastern region.
(KUDENFOR). Serhat Güvenç received his BA and MA degrees from Marmara University and his PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. He is currently Professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University. Previously he held fulltime, adjunct and visiting faculty positions at Istanbul Bilgi University, the University of Chicago, Koç University and Boğaziçi University. Dr. Güvenç s research interests include Turkish foreign and security policy and Turkish naval policy and history. He has authored/co-authored three books and his articles have appeared in Middle Eastern Studies, International Journal of Naval History, Uluslararası İlişkiler, Exotierika Themata (Greek), Journal of Strategic Studies, GMF Mediterranean Papers, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, International Journal, Turkish Studies, Turkish Policy Quarterly and The Journal of Military History. Professor Güvenç is a board member of the Foundation of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants and advisory board member of Koç University Maritime Forum Zenonas Tziarras holds a PhD in Politics & International Studies from the University of Warwick. Among other things, he has collaborated with PRIO Cyprus Center as an external research consultant and worked with a number of think tanks in Cyprus and abroad as an consultant on geopolitical issues. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Cyprus, specializing in Turkish foreign policy. Previously he taught modules related to International Relations, Security Studies and Middle Eastern affairs at the University of Warwick, University of Cyprus and UCLan Cyprus. He has co-authored Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean: Ideological Aspects of Foreign Policy [in Greek].